a firm but delicate hand, while the question of punishment was allowed to slide.
The improvement of the Company's trade was another object of Hastings' care. His letters of this period show his conversance with all kinds of practical details, his appetite for fresh knowledge, and the readiness with which he could turn aside from larger subjects to discuss some new method of preparing silk thread, or to give advice about the purchase of cocoons. His duties, in fact, were so multifarious that he might well complain to his friend Du Pré of 'a mind discomposed, and a temper almost fermented to vinegar by the weight of affairs to which the former is unequal, and by everlasting teasing.' Complainants from all quarters 'halloo'd' him for justice, whenever he looked out of window or took an airing. 'Nevertheless,' he writes, 'we go on, though slowly; and in the hopes of support at home, and of an easier time here when proper channels are cut for the affairs of the province to flow in, I persevere. Neither my health nor spirits, thank God, have yet forsaken me.' The support he hoped for was not withheld; and the good opinion of his friends in India was ratified by the terms in which the Secret Committee at home expressed their 'entire approbation,' and promised him their 'firmest support' in accomplishing what he had so successfully begun.
The year 1773 opened with the trial of Rájá Shitáb Rái before a Committee of which Hastings himself was president. The pressure of more important
